The latest healthcare stories from the Impact desk.
Bengaluru: Dr. Devi Shetty has emerged as one of the most influential figures in India’s healthcare sector, redefining accessibility by building one of the world’s most affordable and scalable cardiac care models through Narayana Health.
New Delhi: In India’s vast rural landscape, where access to quality healthcare has long been a challenge, artificial intelligence (AI) is emerging as a powerful tool to bridge the gap between patients and medical expertise. With limited availability of doctors, inadequate infrastructure, and long travel distances, millions of people in remote areas have historically struggled to receive timely diagnosis and treatment. Today, technology is beginning to change that narrative.
Mohit Kumar and Vatsal Singhal built Runnr, sold it to Zomato, and could have stopped there. Instead they started Ultrahuman in 2019 with a simple thesis: most people manage their health reactively, after symptoms appear, but the data to catch problems early already exists inside the body. A ring, a glucose monitor, a blood test, and an ambient home sensor could read that data continuously. The question was whether people would pay for it. $64 million in revenue says yes.
There are parts of the world where there is one radiologist for every million people. A chest X-ray taken in a rural clinic might wait days for a trained specialist to read it. In those days, early TB progresses. A lung nodule that was treatable becomes inoperable. Qure.ai's AI reads that scan in under a minute — as accurately as a radiologist. It is now doing this in 105 countries. TIME called it one of the most influential companies in the world.
Home diagnostics is shedding its clinical gown, moving from professional labs to living rooms. Simultaneously, AI is proving to be a powerful equaliser, delivering massive salary gains for women and drawing talent from beyond India's tech hubs. This is the story of two parallel revolutions: one in health, one in work.
In a country where diagnostic errors often begin before samples reach the lab, Orange Health Labs is betting that speed is the missing link. With 30-minute home collection and 750 trained eMedics, the startup is turning healthcare into an on-demand service.
India’s proposed childhood cancer registry increasingly raises broader questions around healthcare visibility, planning and how data can shape treatment systems.
India’s expanding HPV vaccination efforts increasingly suggest a broader public-health shift toward preventive healthcare and earlier intervention strategies around cervical cancer.
Healthcare innovation increasingly appears to be moving beyond hospitals as robotics and intelligent systems begin supporting caregiving, rehabilitation and home-based healthcare environments.